It has been quite a while since I posted about my dear crab apple tree. Summer is always a quiet time for it, anyway. Once the blossom fades in May it blends into the background providing some shade for the end of the garden and a dark green backdrop for other plants to shine.
It looked as good as ever this spring, covered in blossom and, with the introduction of an espalier eating apple into the garden, I was hopeful it would be a pollinator for it. But, whilst my new apple was happpily pollianted and produced our first tasty home-grown fruit, my crab apple has not faired so well. In June, July and August we had so much rain, day after day, that I rarely venutred out into the garden. If I did, it was for a hurried trip to the compost bin and to the shed to drop off some recycling. Then, one day it stopped raining and I finally got a chance to potter and whilst doing a spot of weeding I had a look at the crab. Oh, it didn’t look well. My first thought was not another tree to have to get cut down. We’re not doing well with trees so far, an ornamental cherry lost to canker, an acer lost to something undiagnosed, a silver birch that was just too big. I was beginning to wonder if I had some unwanted propensity for killing trees.
The leaves looked sickly, and I could barely see any fruit. I did wonder if it was the weather. The tree looks a little better now for some sun, but I can only describe it as looking a bit mangy; it’s had a hard year.
It should be dripping in fruit and they should be ripening nicely now but the weather has put paid to that. When it came into blossom at the end of April we suffered a cold snap. Late frosts and heavy rain meant there were no insects about to pollinate. This will certainly explain the lack of fruits and is a worrying example of what will happen in the future if we don’t protect our pollinating insects, such as honey bees. Those fruits that have appeared are much smaller than normal and scabby and I can only imagine this has been caused by the miserable summer.
For me, it means fewer lovely red apples to gaze at whilst I do the washing up this autumn and winter, but more importantly, the blackbirds and starlings that strip the tree of fruit from December into March, will be short of food this winter. I fear it will be a hard year for the birds and small mammals dependent on trees and hedgerows for their food. Hips, haws and berries are all scarce, certainly here, this autumn.
So, whilst the tree doesn’t look at its best and I’ll have to buy more bird food to make sure they don’t go hungry this winter, it is a relief that it just seems to be the weather that has caused my crab apple to look so bad this year, I don’t think I could face another visit from a tree surgeon.
If it’s any comfort, my apple tree looks a bit worse for wear this year as well, and the fruits are scabbed in several places.
Thanks
. At least our eating apples were fine.
Well, my apples are tasty enough, it seems, since I just sampled one of them. Unfortunately it is an apple tree planted by a previous owner (lobo), and it’s not a great eating apple, so they will probably go in the juicer most of them. (So the scabbing is really not a problem.)
What a shame, the weather has so much to answer for this year. Fingers crossed that next year is better all round.
I know but I’m happier thinking it’s only the weather rather than I’ve killed another tree.
I planted a crab apple last year, it has 2 apples on it at the moment – they are such beautiful trees.
They are one of my all-time favourite trees, providing so much interest. I’m sure it won’t be long before yours is smothered in fruit.
Think its been an awful year all round everywhere. Several of my fruit trees didn’t set any fruit, plums, damsons and mirabelles. One of my dessert cherries in on the brink, it got much too wet as we had problems for the first time ever with standing water, and they hate wet feet. Not sure it will survive.
My Malus ‘Evereste’ has no fruit at all. The dessert and cooking apples have done well, though, so have the pears.
I know my bees hated it – they sulked and got quite irritable, and I ended up feeding them most of the summer too as they couldn’t go out to forage.
Hope you don’t have to call on the tree surgeon again, like you I get rather attached to my trees and am a closet tree hugger, but don’t tell anyone will you.
Your secret is safe with me. I’m a bit of a tree hugger too. It is actually quite comforting to hug a tree. They feel so solid and dependable.(I’ve only done it a few times, honestly).
It has been a strange year regarding fruit. Some people seem to have had no problems and then others have no fruit at all. I guess it depended what the weather was like in the particular area at the time of pollination. Sorry to hear about the cherry. It’s my favourite fruit so if I had one I’d be gutted if it didn’t look like it would survive. Fingers crossed it’ll pull through.
Lets hope your tree recovers and is better next spring. Our big Bramley has a good number of apples, plenty for us but we used to give away 2/3 of our crop, none to give away this year. I have one small pear and a few small damsons because even though we had lots and lots of lovely blossom, there were no bees to pollinate them. It is certainly going to be a bad year for fruit this year, we can only hope that next year will be better, otherwise we will have to be prepared do our own pollinating.
Can you imagine if we had to hand pollinate our orchards like they do in China? How much would fruit cost then?
I do hope it recovers. The birds don’t really take the fruit from my crab apple, the fruit tends to stay on until after the tree blooms the following year. Christina
Thanks Christina, The birds don’t touch them until after Christmas. Apparently they like them when the frost has got to them, it makes them softer for them to eat but over the next 2 months they will strip the tree bare. WW
Hi – good to hear it’s the weather. My apple trees are producing manky little apples, and very few without holes – at least this explains the size. I think I will put grease bands around the trees this autumn to stop the moth.
Hi Jane, There’s always something waiting in the wings to attack what you plant. I hadn’t even thought about moths and my eating apple.
A lot of fruit trees, like so many things haven’t done well this year. xx
our plums have been ratty and sulking for the years we’ve had them (inherited on our plot) but this year! They are doing a Viewing Cherry Blossom in Japan show!
Diana, Your own cherry blossom display sound amazing. I love that frothy pinky-white spring show.
2 Summers of heat and drought have really taken a toll on fairly new fruit trees! Hope it comes around!
Hi Mrs Welly, I live in SW France where virtually anything I plant does wonderfully well. This year, however, I have no fruit whatsoever…(cherries, apricots, plums) nothing. I have a huge and very old apple tree which has a totally hollow trunk so I’m astounded at how many apples it usually produces, the whole hamlet takes away barrow loads and I pack my freezer full of them and I MOAN and MOAN and wish it didn’t produce so much. Well, be careful what you wish for. I’m missing my apples now..the pies, the cider, the chutney. I hope the weather is kinder to your tree and mine next year
So sorry to read about your crab apple’s woes WW but from what you write it sounds hopefully more of a blip than a terminal decline. Another casualty of this year’s weather. Hopefully you and the birds in your garden will be feasting your eyes and beaks on a fine crop next year. I am going to be browsing the catalogues soon so that we can plant a crab apple this autumn.
Oh, poor tree. I love crab apples, hopefully, since they are tough little blighters, yours will be fine again next year. I certainly hope you won’t need a tree surgeon again! I don’t mind calling such people to remove unwanted conifers, but being a confirmed tree hugger I hate it when anything else has to be removed. I lost an acer too, wonderful tree, I still miss it, and its not even my garden any more!
I think it will be Janet. It seems like it has just been the awful weather this year, poor thing. I hate losing any plant but trees are much more of a wrench. They have such a presence and the birds love them. When we had to get rid of the birch tree it was so sad to not see the birds flitting in and out of it.